Trick or Treat

We are so excited to be celebrating Halloween in our new house!  We dressed up for this GROOVY occasion.

Trick-or-treaters ringing the doorbell is a special treat!  In all we had 54 visitors.  We had a special appearance by Cinderella.

Licking her lips after a tasty treat!

A ferocious lion stopped by and gobbled up his ghost cookie.

The Diehls brought their little lobster by for a Halloween first!

Our neighborhood has a Halloween Open House for little ones to enjoy.  I whipped up a few spooky treats to share.

Nutter Butter Ghosts

Eyeball Cupcakes

Witches and Wizards

During our hot summer days of taming the gardens, I stumbled upon a black kettle hidden in a pile of leaves.  The minute I saw it I knew that it would be perfect as a Halloween decoration.  I gave it a fresh coat of spray paint and brewed up this little concoction:

Speaking of our yard, the tree you are about to see has been dropping walnuts in our yard for the last several weeks.

Ian and I have spent numerous Saturdays collecting and dodging walnuts.  Thankfully, Ian located the Nut Wizard online.  Last Sunday, I filled about 20 five gallon buckets using the handy dandy Nut Wizard.

Imagine this times 10!

Be Our Guest

We had our first overnight guests in the new house last weekend.  My grandparents drove down from Iowa to spend the weekend with us.  We took them to all our favorite spots on The Square and Gramps helped Ian with a few woodworking projects and questions.  My parents and sister also stopped by for dinner while they were in town.

A Casa de Carle tradition is to sign the guest book.  

Granny and Gramps made the first official entry!

 

Dressing Up for Halloween: Home Edition

I have been waiting to make this blog post since July.  What took me so long?  Well, I wanted to wait until just the right time to reveal the three new additions to our Halloween decor.  I have been patiently waiting for the calendar to turn to October so that I could 'officially' decorate for Halloween.  Not only did we gain new rooms and new gardens in our move, we gained new possibilities for decorating.  Feel free to rip off the ideas, I did.  However, Ian has a few original designs that I will happily highlight!

Let's begin with the 'SPOOKY' fireplace mantle.
The candlesticks on either end are Ian Carle originals.

Next, we have some Halloween Luminaries.

Finally, the Mummy.
These wooden letters are another Ian Carle original.

I had a few other items in the Halloween box to display as well.

I brought my Harry Potter books home from school to display.  Ian and I found this creepy, sparkly hand at a fun store on The Square to add and topped the whole look off with a hand-crafted wand from Carpenter Carle.

I already had the three candlesticks and decided three mini-pumpkins would add just the right touch.

This last guy has been around for awhile, but he's helping me count down the minutes until
October 31.

According to Ian, the cute decorations were not necessary since our entry way, formal living room and dining room are a haunted house all on there own.  
But Jen still has one or two more decorating ideas brewing.